In Silico Analysis of Gene Expression Network Components Underlying Pigmentation Phenotypes in the Python Identified Evolutionarily Conserved Clusters of Transcription Factor Binding Sites

Figure 8

Orthologous multiple sequence alignment of POU3F2 across species. The alignment shows marked divergence within the N-terminal portions of the protein and strong conservation within the C-terminal region. The pattern of sequence variation observed within the N-terminal region is consistent with properties associated with transcriptional activator domains where lengths of consecutive repeats of basic amino acids vary among species. Between alignment position 151 and alignment position 160, a group of glutamines (Q) are observed with noticeable differences among the species. However, the DNA binding region of POU3F2, which is composed of the POU-specific domain (python position 51 to position 125) and the homeodomain (python position 125 to position 205), exhibits perfect sequence identity among all of the species.